A Celebration of Latin Music and Sustainable Design

Spacios A Design Group Inc., is a studio set design, trade show, and retail display business that works with customers to create the perfect atmosphere and ambient environment to highlight retail spaces, trade shows and televised events. Established in 1985, in what began as a family-run business in Miami, FL, Danny Lopez, General Manager of Spacios, is now the third generation of his family to manage Spacios’ day-to-day operations. In the beginning, Lopez says, their small crew did everything from designing templates and painting, to building the signs and structures.

Today, Spacios is an event signage print service provider with over 40 employees. Twelve years ago, Spacios started using digital print to create decorative designs with pressure-sensitive vinyl and a matte overlaminate to reduce surface glare and provide enhanced image durability. “The advent of digital printing allows us to complete the process in a fraction of the time it would take traditionally,” offers Lopez.

About 20 percent of Spacios’ output is digitally printed signage with the majority being trade show and retail display work. “We typically get involved in the overall set design that usually entails producing colorful or color coordinating panoramas to complement a product or event,” explains Lopez. He believes the benefits of digitally printing event signage are cost, speed, and installation efficiency.

As digital technology continued to advance, and the demand for digital print increased, Spacios decided to look at the environmental aspects of the projects they were producing. In 2017, the printer began to reexamine the substrates they were using and was ultimately introduced to DigiScape® Stick-R from Neenah’s Wide Format collection of paper-based products. DigiScape Stick-R is a 9-mil, reinforced non-woven wallcovering. It features a removable pressure-sensitive adhesive and is compatible with eco-solvent, solvent, latex, UV, and offset technology. DigiScape Stick-R is FSC certified and PVC free.

An ideal printable matte surface, DigiScape Stick-R requires no post-printing lamination. Other advantages include the product’s dimensional stability, which eliminates the steady tug and pulls from temperature changes that are typically experienced with pressure-sensitive vinyl. 

Efficiency and ease of installation are also an advantage of DigiScape Stick-R. “It allows us to install in the shop or at the show site with minimal labor,” adds Lopez. The product sticks cleanly and completely to just about any surface, including the raw finished plywood Spacios uses to build sets and displays. Today, DigiScape Stick-R is Spacios’ go-to product for decorative surface imaging.

Lopez notes that with the accelerated pace of today’s limited-time offers, seasonal promotions, and one-night-only events, the print service providers are seeing the both the economic and environmental benefits of paper-based media solutions. Paper-based materials can provide advantages in the recycling stream, as paper is disposable and more widely recycled.

At the time Spacios made the switch to the more environmentally friendly DigiScape, Univision approached the printer to work on the 2017 Latin Grammy Awards broadcast event. The project required 12,000 square feet of digitally printed signage. Spacios chose to use DigiScape Stick-R for its flat matte texturized print surface, dimensional stability, adhesive compatibility, and sustainable qualities.

It took Spacios four weeks to build the set, two days to print and decorate, and one day to install the graphics. “The speed and efficiency of the installation were fantastic, and the soft matte finish of the product eliminated the need for an overlaminate to cut the studio glare,” shares Lopez. “Most importantly, it was a much ‘greener’ solution and the studio welcomed that option.”

 

Univision and the Latin Grammy Awards coordinators were pleased with the final display. Univision loved the finish of the printed product. “It had a nice matte textured finish and when the light hit, it was beautiful,” says Lopez.

In the future, Lopez says Spacios hopes to provide more sustainable solutions to help lead his clients’ design needs down a more environmentally conscious path.